The American Bar Association will convene this week its 44th National Conference on Professional Responsibility in Louisville, Ky., with an array of programs, including panels on sanctioning lawyers for deceit, legal issues in using artificial intelligence (AI) and responding to social media performance complaints.
The conference, sponsored by the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, is the pre-eminent educational and networking opportunity in the field of legal ethics and professional responsibility.
Leading experts, scholars and practitioners from across the country will address trends and developments in legal ethics, professional discipline, professionalism and practice issues.
On Friday evening, law professor Bruce Green will receive the Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award, named in honor of Michael Franck, the late director of the State Bar of Michigan and long-time champion of improvements in lawyer regulation in the public interest.
Green, who holds the Louis Stein Chair at Fordham University School of Law, directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics.
A popular media expert on legal ethics, he also teaches and writes primarily in the areas of legal ethics and criminal law, and is involved in various bar association activities both with the ABA and the New York State Bar Association.
Programs at the two-day conference include:
• “Ethics in Lawyers’ Use of Artificial Intelligence” — As machine capabilities allow the profession to diminish (or even remove) human participation from some tasks traditionally involved in the practice of law, this panel will explore how will these changes will affect the delivery of future legal services.
Lawyers who work for businesses creating and expanding these machine capabilities and ethics lawyers will tackle the issues, including analysis of the ethical and legal accountability involved in AI.
• “Lies, Damned Lies and ‘Alternative Facts’” — Lawyers are not allowed to lie — to clients, courts or third parties. But beyond deliberate false statements, the scope of the obligations relating to truth and integrity become less clear, such as apparent reckless and negligent statements that are likely false or misleading statements.
Through a series of hypotheticals, this session will explore the issues of attorney candor, the parameters of what constitutes a misrepresentation and the consequences for violating one’s duty of candor.
• “When Clients Go Rogue” — ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct Rule 1.2(d) prohibits lawyers from assisting clients “in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent.” The occasional report of a lawyer’s involvement in money laundering and terrorist financing raises questions of whether the word “knows” is defined as “actual knowledge” or should be construed as “knowledge (that) may be inferred from the circumstances.” The panel will explore when the suspicious nature of a client’s conduct becomes so obvious that a lawyer’s lack of actual knowledge can be deemed willful ignorance and whether this constitutes misconduct.
• “What Do You Mean I Can’t Defend Myself on YELP?” — Lawyers have faced disciplinary sanctions for attempting to defend themselves by responding to former clients’ online false and sometimes defamatory negative reviews.
Should the exceptions in the confidentiality rule permit lawyers to disclose information to defend their reputations online? This session will explore that question as well as what is happening in the various states involving these client information issues.
• The CPR is the national leader in developing and interpreting standards and scholarly resources in legal and judicial ethics, professional regulation, professionalism and client protection.
Its many publications provide up-to-date information and analysis regarding lawyer and judicial ethics and regulation. Also the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issues a series of formal opinions to help guide lawyers and judges.
- Posted May 29, 2018
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
ABA event includes programs on 'alternative facts'
headlines Macomb
- Bodman attorney displays passion for tax law
- Children Trust Michigan raises awareness of Child Abuse Prevention Month
- Law school’s team wins William and Mary Colonial Cup Competition
- Chief Justice Roberts, Attorney General Garland, author John Grisham join legal aid leaders to mark 50th anniversary of LSC
- Macomb County Board of Commissioners Announces commissioner vacancy
headlines National
- Incarceration series includes female inmates but doesn’t tell full story
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- Former DOJ official who alleged election fraud violated at least one ethics rule, ethics committee says
- Winston & Strawn will provide reduced-cost legal services for routine tasks under Winston Legal Solutions umbrella
- Should Justice Sotomayor retire? Chemerinsky, White House haven’t joined calls for her to step down
- Which BigLaw firms are increasing lateral associate hiring the most? One made legal headlines last year